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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28628577">Necessary Evil</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor'>Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Underfell - Fandom, Undertale (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), And a burden they shouldn't have had to bear, Angst, Angst and Feels, Body Modification, Brotherly Angst, Crying, Fainting, Fear, Guilt, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It's a choice they never should have needed to face, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, Pain, Responsibility, Sacrifice, Self-Sacrifice, Shame, Vomiting, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:07:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28628577</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Papyrus gives Sans one of the most torturous tasks of his life. He can't falter. He can't hesitate. If he backs down and takes the coward's way out, Papyrus will be forced to do it himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Papyrus &amp; Sans (Undertale)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Necessary Evil</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sans thinks he might be sick before this is over. He’s near certain that Papyrus will; his brother—poor, dear, brave Papyrus—is grinding his teeth against the sobs with such force that he might taste dust. His eyelights are brighter than Sans has ever seen them, swimming with the tears that stream down his face.</p><p>Sans hasn’t seen him cry so openly since he was seven (or younger?) and the fact that he is the one causing his brother this agony makes his soul churn in his chest.</p><p>“Papyrus,” he starts again, feebly.</p><p>“<em>No!</em>” he chokes out, though it’s more of a heated moan than an intelligible word. He rocks forward with a foul, frantic curse he shouldn’t know at his age. His shoulders heave and his head shakes, tears flinging from his cheeks. “I need this, I <em>need</em> this!”</p><p>“I <em>want</em> this!” he had said before, among so many other things. “How many times have you reminded me of Rule #1, Sans? ‘Never let them get too close!’ I need this to defend myself!”</p><p><em>And you</em>, his imploring eyes and grabbing hands had added none too subtly, and still Sans had viciously refused. Nothing in this world could convince him to <em>mutilate</em> his own kin, he thought—that is, until Papyrus threatened to do it himself.</p><p>“You don’t even know what you’re sayin’. You don’t have the balls for somethin’ like that, not all by yourself.”</p><p>Did Sans know him at all? Those words were like throwing a match on gasoline. Papyrus’ pocketknife, salvaged from the dump, was out in a flash, its blade blunt and pitifully small. The real threat was the unflinching determination in his voice.</p><p>“<em>Watch me</em>.”</p><p>That growl was a promise—as good as saying he would be dead by morning. As young and as smart as he is, only Papyrus would find a stupid way to take it too far. What would Sans prefer, a pocketknife buried in dust or the guilt of aiding and abetting his brother’s torture?</p><p>Poor, precious, <em>brave</em>, <em>stupid</em> Papyrus is hovering at half of his HP. Sans checks obsessively. Every fraction lost, every new particle of dust coating his fingers chills him. His ribs are numb. He hasn’t breathed in minutes.</p><p>Sans wants so badly to take the coward’s way out. He wants to toss the knife aside and slap some kind of reason into Papyrus, wring his neck, shake him senseless for putting him in this position. He doesn’t want to hear him sobbing anymore. He doesn’t want to keep repeating, “Stay still, you gotta stay still!” The words taste more and more like bile every time.</p><p>Something manic at his core—layers of conditioning, perhaps—wishes they were back in the lab. They would be tortured all the same but there it would be sterile, professional, by someone who knew what in Asgore’s name he was doing. There would be medicines, a rare offering of a healing item. Sans would give anything for a healing item now, anything to smother the scream that tears out of Papyrus’ throat as he drags the knife down yet again. He should have thought to gag him, give him something to bite down on, but if he sets down the knife to do so now he knows he won’t have the will to pick it up again.</p><p>“Papyrus,” he murmurs desperately. “<em>Papyrus</em>…” His voice quavers and he can’t even care. He’s begging his own brother to save himself from himself. <em>Say one word. One word and I can stop. Make it stop. Get us both out of this now</em>.</p><p>Papyrus sobs bitterly and Sans can hear the temptation in it. Stupid, brave Papyrus didn’t understand the magnitude of his request before. He doesn’t want this anymore.</p><p>But in this world, he needs it.</p><p>“No,” he croaks again, small and raw, and then he reels to the side and vomits. The lurching motion chips Sans’ next stroke, fiery horror sweeping over him at his carelessness, but he can’t think on it long. Papyrus is doubling down now, leaning over their shared work with slurred, spitting pleas. Sans gasps in agony of his own, hunches over, pressing his forehead to his brother’s.</p><p>“I know, I know,” he hisses, though he doesn’t know. He wants this to be a nightmare. He wants to wake up.</p><p>Papyrus, it seems, wants to do the opposite. His tears still flow freely, his breaths still shuddering with pain, but his bones rattle under the strain as he sways. Sans prays for him to faint. He’ll see then why Sans prefers dreamlessness over this sick reality. The darkness is empty and kind; he won’t feel another thing. That, Sans can do for him. He draws back, steadies his hand again.</p><p>One more swipe of the blade does it, pushing Papyrus past the white-hot crest, past the stars in his eyes and the defiance in his spine to finally let him fall on his sword. He crumples out of consciousness mid-whimper and the world feels empty without his noise.</p><p>Sans could betray him now. He could make the knife disappear, hurl it into Waterfall’s deepest pool. He could end this for the both of them. Let Papyrus hate him if it meant he could wash his hands of it.</p><p>He’s just a kid, a kid Sans is sworn to look after—a kid who made this choice himself. They don’t have many freedoms to choose in their lives, do they? And Papyrus had relied on Sans to help him do this horrific thing. He could have said nothing, snuck off to try it himself from the get-go and left Sans to sweep up the pieces, if he ever found them.</p><p>Papyrus trusted him.</p><p>Sans wants to break. He wants to be rid of this dusty blade locked in his grasp and curl around his little idiot, hide him away and swear that he will never be hurt again by anyone or anything, not even by his own choices, because Sans won’t <em>allow</em> it. He wants Papyrus to hate him for that protective cowardice; it would be nothing compared to the loathing he feels for himself now, doing this to the only person in the world that matters.</p><p>Ah, but hasn’t he learned by now? What he wants is irrelevant. His job is to sacrifice his wants for Papyrus’ sake.</p><p>Sans cracks his neck, rolls his shoulders, wipes his damp face against his sleeve. Was he crying? He hadn’t noticed. He blinks through the blur and takes Papyrus’ hand in his own. He would squeeze the blood out of it if there was any to be found. Stroke by stroke, finger by finger, he scrapes at tender, exposed bone.</p><p>He held these hands to steady Pap when he was learning how to walk. They were so small back then; they barely filled Sans’ palm.</p><p>Papyrus’ HP whittles painstakingly down. Sans trembles, mopping his face again, but his eye sockets still burn with the particles in the air. He coughs and then blows away whatever shavings he can.</p><p>He remembers the first time one of these tiny, precious hands tried to grab his thumb.</p><p>Dizzy with old grief, he slides his fingers along Papyrus’, testing their bend, their curvature. His newly carved claws are grisly to behold. In his soul Sans knows it probably won’t be long before they’re coated in dust again.</p><p>At least it won’t be his own.</p><p>This world can fashion even the kindest of monsters into weapons.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Real talk, I'm not one to get teary over my own stories very often but I kind of got myself with this one :'D</p><p>My headcanon, clearly, is that Fell Papyrus wasn't born with those sharp claws of his. Just as he and Sans had to forcibly sharpen their teeth, they had to sharpen Pap's hands (As far as I know Fell Sans doesn't have the claws Pap does, so it wouldn't be a choice he'd make for himself. He doesn't have the HP to endure it.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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